Path To Sunday

The story of the three kings is one of the most beautiful stories in Scripture. This narrative reveals something deeply human: our longing to search for truth. The Gospel, in fact, never calls these three travelers kings, but magi. They were learned men from the East, likely from the Parthian Empire, practitioners of an ancient religion known as Zoroastrianism. They were scholars, observers of the heavens, men who believed that movements in the sky revealed meaning on earth. When these magi saw a star rise, they understood it as a sign: the birth of a king. They didn’t practice astrology as we know it today, but performed a disciplined reading of the cosmos. They had no map, no certainty, no guarantee—only a conviction that something profoundly important had happened. And so they set out, traveling a long, expensive, dangerous journey simply to find the truth. Why would they do this? Surely there were kings closer to home. But they were not searching for power or politics.

The Holy Family is, in one sense, an unusual family. Mary, both wife and mother, is a perpetual virgin who conceives her Son not through human means but by the power of the Holy Spirit. That Son, Jesus, is both fully God and fully man. Technically, no husband was necessary for this divine plan—yet God ensured one anyway. Joseph is given to Mary as husband and to Jesus as a human, adoptive father. This extraordinary family then lives not in a place of prestige, but in Nazareth, a small and insignificant town, so unimpressive that Nathanael famously asks, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” And yet, despite all this, the Holy Family becomes a model for every family.

In our own time, the very definition of family is often debated and redefined. Throughout history, families have taken different forms—nuclear, extended, adoptive—but in Joseph, Mary, and Jesus we see a clear message from God. To save us, the Son of God took on a true human nature and lived the full gamut of human life. Theoretically, he could have appeared on earth fully grown, but instead He was conceived in Mary’s womb, born as a child, and raised within a family.

One of the most striking things we do not learn about Saint Joseph from the Bible is what he said. In fact, if we scour the entire Scriptures, not a single word spoken by Joseph is recorded. At first, this seems very odd. Surely Joseph spoke during his lifetime. Yet the silence of Scripture is fitting, because it reveals exactly who Saint Joseph was: a man whose character is shown not by words, but by actions. He is Joseph the Just, Joseph the Courageous, and Joseph the Foster Father of Jesus and Patron Saint of Workers.

Joseph is called “the just.” His justice is seen clearly in the story of Jesus’ conception. Joseph and Mary were betrothed, a binding legal commitment far more serious than modern engagement. When Mary was found to be pregnant before they lived together, Joseph faced a grave situation. Though the law allowed for public accusation, Joseph chose compassion. As Scripture tells us, “since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame,” he decided to divorce her quietly.

This time of year, the dusty rose vestments remind us that Gaudete Sunday is here—a Sunday of rejoicing as we move closer to Christmas. Today, we once again consider John the Baptist and his expectations about the Messiah. Like John, we also carry expectations of God. We expect Him to hear our prayers, to help us in trouble, to cure illness, and to fix what feels broken. But what do we do when God does not respond in the way we hope?

John the Baptist believed Jesus was the Messiah, yet when Jesus did not act with power and judgment immediately, John questioned. He expected a fiery Messiah who would come with force and authority. Instead, Jesus came with mercy—healing the sick, restoring sight, and raising the dead. Jesus responded to John’s doubts not with anger, but with evidence: the blind see, the lame walk, and the poor receive the Good News. Jesus fulfilled the words of the prophet Isaiah, showing He was truly the one sent by God.

Imagine a man who approaches you dressed in a camel-hair tunic, cinched with a leather belt, crunching on a handful of locusts dipped in honey. Suddenly he points at you and cries, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” Most of us would probably think he was mentally ill and had forgotten to take his medication. Yet this is exactly the kind of shocking figure John the Baptist was.

We come to church, hear the familiar stories of Jesus’ birth, and think, “Isn’t that nice?” They can become heart-warming background noise, especially if we’ve heard them so many times that we hardly pay attention. But the reality is far from tame. John the Baptist bursts onto the scene in today’s Gospel as a jarring figure. By our standards, he would seem eccentric for living alone in the desert, wearing strange clothing, and shouting dire predictions. The prophets throughout salvation history were the same. These were strange people doing outrageous things, not evil but certainly not “normal.”

The Advent scriptures are full of such figures precisely to shake us out of complacency.

At first glance, the idea of “canceling Christmas” sounds outrageous, but perhaps it invites us to ask a deeper question: Why do we celebrate Christmas at all? For many people, the holiday has lost its meaning—becoming little more than parties, shopping, decorating, and baking. If Christmas is meant to honor Jesus, then celebrating it while having no desire to speak with Him or welcome Him into our lives is an empty gesture. Maybe what needs canceling is not Christmas itself, but the way we have come to observe it.

The Church teaches that the most important celebration of the year is actually Easter. The Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil commemorates the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Thes are the center of our salvation. But this raises a question: if Jesus is truly God made man, how did He enter our world? This brings us to Christmas, the second most important feast. It commemorates not only His birth in Bethlehem two thousand years ago, but also His promised return. As St. Paul says, “The night is advanced, the day is at hand.” By celebrating His first coming, we anticipate and hope for His second.

Today’s political climate is marked by conflict, division, and constant disagreement. Suppose we swept away the presidency, Congress, the Supreme Court, and every political party, replacing them with a single king. Most of us would hesitate at the idea. History teaches that kings often became self-serving, unjust, or even despotic. Yet imagine if we could be guaranteed a king who was truly perfect. This king would be perfectly just, perfectly wise, perfectly selfless. A king who always acted for the good of his people, ruled with compassion, and could never die or be corrupted. With such a leader, elections, partisanship, and political corruption would vanish. Many of us might be intrigued by this possibility, though we assume no such king exists.

We Catholic Christians, however, profess that such a king does exist whose kingdom is not political and not confined to any earthly nation. God is King, not through force or election, but by virtue of being Creator. He made the universe from nothing, established the laws of physics, and sustains everything in existence. His “rules” are not arbitrary impositions but the wise principles that allow life and creation to flourish.

This world is not our true home. Everything we see will one day pass away; even the most beautiful and big things, like the Grand Canyon, will end. In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus leads His disciples to the magnificent Temple of Jerusalem, where God dwelt with his people. Yet Jesus says, “The days will come when not one stone will be left upon another.” That must have seemed impossible, especially since the people thought that they were obeying God’s commandments.

We too like to think that we are “ok” with God, and therefore that he will give us comfortable lives on earth. We spend so much time worrying about work, money, homes, and possessions. Yet, truthfully, how close are we to God? How much do we invest in our relationship with God? Everything we build and acquire in this world will vanish. Only our faith and love for Christ will endure.

This Sunday is unusual in the sense that, what would have been the 32^nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, is superseded by the Solemnity of the Dedication of St. John Lateran. That church (building) is the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Rome; St. Peter’s Basilica is not the cathedral. Why is the celebration of the dedication of St. John’s so important that we not only celebrate it in the Archdiocese of Chicago, but also that it supersedes a Sunday of Ordinary Time? That is because it represents far more than merely being the cathedral of Rome.

The land itself was originally owned by the Laterani family and eventually given by Emperor Constantine to Pope Melchiade to build a Domus Ecclesia, a “house of the Church.” It was the first Christian Basilica built in Rome, the first purposely built public worship space, even before St. Peter’s, and was dedicated in 324AD.

The Pope, also known as the Bishop of Rome, lived there for about 1000 years before making his permanent residence at the Vatican, which itself contains St. Peter’s Basilica.

A house for the Church, a house of God, is important to our worship. In the Gospel today, Jesus cleanses the temple in Jerusalem of its money changers and those selling sheep and oxen. It states that, “His disciples recalled the words of Scripture, Zeal for your house will consume me.” St. John represents the fact that the universal Church worships the Lord, and that we are zealous for his house.